Earning more than your parents?

Only if you have a bachelor's degree or higher. Interesting chart from the NYT blog Economix looks at the difference in weekly pay during the period from 1979 and 2009 with that of the weekly pay from a generation ago.

Generally speaking, it's harder to make it in today's job market than it was a few decades ago if you don't have at least a high school degree, since the expectations for what educational credentials workers should possess have risen. This is in part because the economy is less dependent on lower-skilled, manual-labor-intensive industries like manufacturing, and more reliant on industries that require formally credentialed education and training, like health care.

With so many lower-skilled jobs disappearing, thanks to computers and outsourcing, the gap between educated and non-educated is likely to increase. This is one explanation for the large number of folks who have been out of work for six months or longer.